Discovered by Condé Nast when he pulled her from the path of a truck barreling down a New York City street, the unpretentiously beautiful model Lee Miller gazed back at readers with sultry eyes from Vogue covers throughout the 1920s. She left the fashion world for France and an art apprenticeship in 1929, and in Paris, under the tutelage of modernist Man Ray, Miller was taken—both with photography and with her mentor. From 1929 to 1932 they worked in artistic and romantic symbiosis, with Miller frequently appearing as muse and subject of Ray’s work. “He rarely made very emotional pictures,” says Phillip Prodger, curator of “Man Ray | Lee Miller, Partners in Surrealism,” opening Saturday at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. “His paintings were mostly like thought puzzles. But when he and Lee were working together, he opened up a little more. The pictures that he made of Lee—there’s one where she seems to be flying through space, and there’s one where she’s sleeping—are among the most touching he ever made.”

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Photo: The Israel Museum by Avshalom Avital

The exhibition is the first to give both artists equal consideration. Miller’s career as a photographer took off in the 1930s, and in the 1940s she returned to Vogue, famously assuming the role of war photographer, a post virtually unheard-of for women at the time. The show, divided into the phases of their relationship, including a section of works from artists in their circle (Picasso, Dora Maar, and Le Corbusier among them), is at once a love letter, an unrequited love song, and a toast to dear old friends. Following a period during which Ray manically pined for Miller after they parted ways, the two married other people, moved several times, and had children, but their deep mutual affection never dwindled, even once post–traumatic stress disorder took its toll on Miller’s mental and physical health from her years documenting the front lines and concentration camps.

The final section of the show is largely composed of little presents Ray made and sent to Miller that were meant to cheer her up during darker times in her later life. “This is a story about what love is and what it can be,” says Prodger. “I think that when they were both young, love had a certain meaning, and as they grew older, they came to understand it in a nuanced way. And it wasn’t just about sex or looking beautiful or showing off at parties. It was something deeper than that. To me, the reason the show resonates is you can see them living through art and coming to understand each other a little better through pictures. Most people never have a visual touchstone for those times in their lives.”